Springfield Armory® Blog

Steve Tarani

Steve is a former CIA protective services subject matter expert who served on Donald Trump’s pre-election protection detail and is the lead instructor for the NRA’s new Non-ballistic Weapons Training program offered nationally to 2.3 million members.
Tarani, an active protective agent, is a Central Intelligence Agency and FLETC-certified federal firearms instructor who also provides services for the US Naval Special Operations Command, FBI National Citizens Academy Alumni Association, National Association of School Resource Officers (NASRO), and others.
For more information on Steve, visit his websites:
SteveTarani.com
HandToGun.com

Recent Posts

As a professional instructor and keynote speaker throughout the public and private sectors, my courses range from awareness-based training (preventative measures) to empty hand defense, to non-ballistic weapons defense (edged, impact, flexible), to defensive firearms.

As a sworn deputy and later a federal employee, it was incumbent upon those of us carrying firearms to qualify with those weapons, meeting the minimum standard as set by that agency or department.

Technically speaking, you could squeak by your in-service qualification with a barely-passing score. However, to the rest of the team you’d be considered a second-rate schmuck if you didn’t hit close to that perfect score. The boys might let you slide if you were down one or two points, but any more than that was considered pedestrian, and you’d pay the price of choking on a giant mouthful of humble pie.

The martial arts offer an age-old perspective on something critically important to your shooting performance – reaction time. Employing a punch, a round kick, an edged weapon or a firearm in self-defense means that you’re reacting to a rapid and dynamic escalation of force. Your objective is to stop or gain control of that escalation. The single most important factor in meeting that objective is time.

Why carry a .380 when you can carry a .45 or even a 9mm pistol? Looking at it from the opposite end of the spectrum, why carry a .45 when you can carry a .50 caliber handgun? Why carry a pistol when you can carry a rifle?

It all filters down to personal decision based on deference to why and how you carry a gun. Further introspection should draw your attention to three important defensive carry factors that you’ve got to consider:

Back in my early Filipino Martial Arts training days (in edged and impact weapons), I would put in anywhere between forty to sixty hours (sometimes more) of hard skills training every week.

During that time, one of my Masters, Punong Guro Edgar Sulite (founder of the LAMECO fighting system), would always remind his committed disciples, that at any level of training, “Repetition is the mother of all skills.”

The demand for self-defense was born at the dawn of time when the first cave man b*****-slapped the second cave man. Ever since, we humans have scratched and clawed our way up the evolutionary ladder of personal defense tools.

When it comes to personal protection against an active threat, having a defensive action plan is not a luxury but a necessity. The advantage of such a plan is:

You’re not waiting around to be caught in the middle of an attack

You are not forced to come up with a solution on the fly

You have a widened scope of awareness prior to an attack

Your intent should always be to predict or prevent your involvement in any violent physical threat. However, if you have no choice but to engage a threat, you must consider your response options based on realistic expectations.

Springfield Armory® recommends you seek qualified and competent training from a certified instructor prior to handling any firearm and be sure to read your owner’s manual. These articles are considered to be suggestions and not recommendations from Springfield Armory®.